Golden light limned Mrs. Chatham. Dust moats floated behind her, caught in the sun’s brilliance flooding the room. With her head tipped, those errant honey-blond tresses brushed her neck. She was luminescent. Well within his reach yet untouchable.

And how he ached to touch her.

“Today’s bout is probably because you’ve sat more than usual,” she went on, standing close enough for him to count her eyelashes. “You’re an energetic man. Give this a try, Your Grace. You won’t regret it.”

She was mellowing him. It was true. He’d done well with long walks, advancing to building not one but two follies on Richland grounds. Physical exertion had helped. The projects staved his boredom, healed his soul, and strengthened a body grown weak after the accident.

His heart thudded against his ribs while he breathed deeply of Mrs. Chatham’s perfume. She had a talent for enthralling him. For making him want. Badly.

Thus, he found himself slipping free of his coat. The murmur of cloth on cloth was seductive, especially with her watching.

“I will allow your medicinal treatment, short of removing my breeches.” Tossing his coat on the settee, he tried to regain control. Arms spread wide, he offered himself to her. “This ought to be sufficient.”

Her laugh sprinkled the air. “Your torso is not the body part in question.”

Lips clamped, he dammed a tide of sensual words that wanted to come out. Mrs. Chatham’s brows arched with challenge. He arched his too. They were in another draw. Frustrating, invigorating, and breathtaking all at once.

“Your Grace,” she chided. “It’s a simple thing, and it solves your problems.”

Was he being foolish? Total surrender was not a familiar skill. Negotiation was.

“What if I put my clothed leg in the butter churn?”

The widow’s mouth made a pretty moue. Her gaze dipped south, landing on his placket, dithering there a moment before sliding over to his thigh. “No. That wouldn’t work. The point is to have hot water against your unclothed skin. Then, I must rub oil onto the affected flesh.”

His gut clenched, and his ballocks twitched. Mrs. Chatham massaging me knee to hip?

Sweet Mother of God!

He’d spend himself. Right here, midday.

Flesh grew heavy against his placket. Parts of him were far from troubled with the makeshift-physic-turned-siren standing before him.

Steam curled up from the butter churn. Cheeks glowing with a pretty sheen, Mrs. Chatham could be an enchantress, dribbling oil from the jar, conjuring a spell. Her fingertips stirred the water and he was lost.

“You might be surprised to know this treatment is quite ancient. It comes from an antiquated book my father purchased.” She stopped her enigmatic stirring and flicked wet fingers. “He collects old books on the healing arts,” she said by way of explanation. “He kept poring over one tome in particular because it addressed wounds of muscle and sinew. He was relentless, writing fellow physics far and wide. The book was of eastern origin, and while he couldn’t read the text, he grasped the scribe’s illustration on this one remedy.”

“That must’ve been quite an illustration.”

Mrs. Chatham lured him. “Oh, it was. Finally, a friend in Venice helped him. He told my father the text referred to oil of amber. The patient must soak in it and—" she fixed a naughty glint on him “—have it rubbed onto the affected limb.”

“Your father administered this?” His placket and his voice were distinctly taut.

“Certainly not. He advised wives what to do, and they tended their husbands, of course.”

“Of course.”

Lambent sensuality danced between them. He was glad his waistcoat’s hem landed atop his thigh—all the better to hide nature’s response. A pulse ticked visibly at the base of Mrs. Chatham’s throat. He wanted to kiss the tiny throb. There was much to explore about his neighbor, her smooth jawline, her incredible mouth, and he had the afternoon to do it.

If he seized this chance.

A hint of laughter outside doused icy water on his ardor.

The ball. Averting his gaze, he stepped back. He wasn’t a feckless man to blithely tup a woman by day, and court another by night. Especially under the same roof. Flesh in his smalls might plow happily onward, but right was right…for all the bloody good it served.

He clapped a hand on his nape and squeezed tense muscles. Perhaps his brains were in his ballocks because he was sorely tempted to let them have sway.

“Mrs. Chatham…”

“Don’t worry, Your Grace. I’ll administer the oil as quickly as possible and leave. I did not expect to stay in the room while you are in a state of undress.”

His shoulders sagged. She was sage and kind. They both understood his predicament without having to say it aloud.

She stuffed the cork back on the vial. “I told the dowager I’d put you in the least compromising position.”

He dropped his hand to his side as a dull ache flared along his outer thigh. The injury and mention of his mother doused the mood.

“Then who will attend me?”

She shrugged. “I can come back.”

“I would hope you would. I am in this predicament because you suggested it to Her Grace.”

She smiled fully aware that he, like his brothers, would do anything to restore their mother’s happiness. “Have you a banyan? You could wear it and—”

“And be stripped to my smalls underneath? Out of the question. There must be another solution.”

She set the jar on the floor and angled her head for a side view of his leg. “What if I cut the outer seam of your breeches? That way you keep your clothes on.”

Blessed relief filled him. “A fine idea.”

“Have you scissors in here?”

“In the top-right drawer of my desk.”

She retrieved them and hurried to his side. Staying mostly clothed restored his sanity and gave him a barrier from the invasion that was Mrs. Chatham. Hands on his hips, he stared ahead and let her undo the button at his knee—anything to keep from visually consuming the bounty of her cleavage.

This is no different than a fitting with my tailor. An easy argument to swallow while he forced his focus to the far wall. On the beige paneling. The white trim. The mirrored sconces newly polished. The matching brass candelabra, both with five, half-melted candles. The door to his bedchamber…

His neighbor’s tender assault weakened him. When he peeked down—his first mistake—she was a study in delicate striving. His thoughtful physic nibbled her bottom lip. Gentle, elegant fingers tested the seam of his breeches.

She slid a hand partway under the cloth, and rivulets of pleasure followed her touch.

Mrs. Chatham’s hand wandering up his breeches was an image that’d be forever burned on his brain.

He closed his eye, surrendering to the attack. She besieged him with her orange and ginger scent, her knuckles grazing his skin and the rustle of her velvet skirts. That jostle of cloth could defeat a man.

Is this what famished men experience? They gorge on crumbs?

Because this was as close as he’d get to being the center of Mrs. Chatham’s attention. Tender hands untied the garter holding up his stockings. She dragged silk down his shin. Air was cool. Her breath was steady and warm, trifling with his bare calf.

A tiny shudder skipped along his spine.

He was living in increments. The shears snip, snip, snipping his breeches. Broadcloth giving way. His fortitude crumbled when metal glanced his hip, and the imprint of Mrs. Chatham’s steadying palm seeped through cloth to his skin. He stilled.

A medieval device could be squeezing his chest, and this was contact with a barrier between them.

“I cut the bottom of your smalls, Your Grace, but they are intact.”

What a reverent confession. Mrs. Chatham, his heretofore saucy healer, was apologetic about nicking his smalls. Was the experienced widow nervous about the path both of them were about to tread? Fabric covered him. The nakedness issue was solved, as long as one didn’t make an over-fine distinction of the word. That hurdle surmounted, he had another to go.

Submitting to her rubbing oil on his bare skin.




CHAPTER 4




THE DUKE’S resistance hung by a thread. Each time her skin glanced his, flesh pebbled. His and hers. Waves of pleasure washed over them from her touching him in this un-carnal manner. Yet both were swept into a tide of yearning.

She was kneeling on the floor, her heart racing and her mouth flooding with wetness. She couldn’t stop licking her lips.

“Now I must administer the oil.”

The duke braced himself. “Do what you must.”

His voice was thick. Hands resting on his hips slid higher to his waist and dug in. That simple move humbled her. His Grace was trying hard to be the moral man his mother and father had raised him to be.

Head bowed, she swallowed the lump in her throat. One caress in the right place, and this afternoon could easily take a different turn. They both knew it.

If she truly cared for him, if she wanted his happiness above her own, she would keep what he valued in place—his sense of goodness and all that it entailed. For there was more to his inheritance than title and wealth. The Richland name was defined by its noble disposition, and Lord Nathaniel was the best of the breed. Generous, hard-working, decent to all.

Who was she to tempt such a man?

She’d honor his reputation, his dignity, and ready in him for tonight. No more teasing. No more flirtation. She’d do what she was tasked with in the first place.

Tears pricked her eyes. This was newfound misery. Truly, Hades added a new level today. It would be torturously known as Preparing a man to dance with another woman.

Three of them actually, and one would become his wife.

As a mature woman she should be able to do this. Contemplating his leg, the slivered view of his thigh with its bits of springy masculine hair, she accepted a truth. Experience didn’t take the sting out of loss. It confirmed it. As much as it promised she could live life happily again…someday.

She sniffled and poured the balm into her cupped hand. Yes, someday. If she sold her cottage and removed herself to another corner of the realm.

Excess oil dripped onto her dry hand. “I am about to administer the oil.” Her voice was shaky. That was the second time she’d warned him.

His good eye was closed. “I am ready.”

She took a bolstering breath and slid her hand up his thigh. The breeches parted. Dark auburn hair crinkled against her palm. She concentrated her strokes around his knee. Rubbing, kneading, feeling him. Muscles knotted under her touch. Angry pink-red scars ridged his skin in places, then ran slick.

Studying the carpet, she offered a bland, “Oil of amber reduces inflammation.”

Explanations were safe. Her hands going above his knee was not.

The duke was silent. His mouth was compressed, and sinew popped visibly on his neck.

“If you continue to exercise the limb…” Her lungs constricted and she let her words taper off.

“Yes?”

Her hands ventured higher, finding well-developed thigh muscles and no scars. “If you—If you exercise the limb and soak it often, you will see much improvement.”

Sweat beaded in her cleavage. She shut her eyes, and her strokes became more vigorous. She was in peril of reaching his hip…and other places.

A hand settled on her shoulder. “Mrs. Chatham, perhaps now is a good time to introduce me to the butter churn?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she fairly breathed the words and withdrew her hands from their hold on his leg.

She was clumsy, getting off the floor. Her legs wouldn’t cooperate, and her corset stuck to heated skin. Whalebone jabbed her. More strands of hair had come loose and were clinging to her cheeks.

“Here.” The duke grasped her by the elbows and helped her upright.

They were quite close and quite intimate. Her limbs were heavy, and her blood was sluggish in her veins. She was sweetly drowsy. She couldn’t leave if she tried.

He’d bound her with a spell.

The center of his eye was a black pool. The fire’s blaze danced bronze-like and dangerous in that dark depth. An auburn wisp fell over his forehead. She brushed it back, tucked it neatly along his temple.

“You should put your leg in the churn.”

“I should.”

They were somehow closer. Velvet-covered breasts brushed a wall of silk, and the duke’s hand slid possessively, neatly into the curve of her waist.

She allowed herself the luxury of tracing his jaw. Barely-there afternoon whiskers scratched her fingertips. Simms would take care of them, but for this moment those whiskers belonged to her.